That Christ Might be All in All: the Career, Historiography, and Ecumenical Hope of Philip Schaff

In this paper I begin with a brief outline Schaff’s life and career, after which I offer a treatment of his theory of historical development and attempt to demonstrate the impact which this theory had on his idea of “evangelical catholicism” and his undying ecumenical labor and hope.

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Thank you for sharing the paper with us. It made very interesting reading. I especially thought fascinating the comparison of Newman and Schaff’s simultaneous explorations of ecclesial history with completely opposite conclusions on the Reformation.

I am wondering if this was motivated by their personal philosophical and historical biases. Newman was very much the classicist and his exploration from the outset sought to restore the early undivided Church of the patristic period. With such a program in mind, he was bound to see the Reformation as, at best, an overreaction. It seems his hopes for the Oxford Movement dissipated when it became clear, after the reaction to the infamous Tract 90, that even Anglicans were not interested in turning back the clock.

Schaff’s premises and view of progress strike me as purely modern – however deep his appreciation of history. From what you have written, his historical curiousity was motivated from an Hegelian viewpoint that saw the patristic past as a necessary step on the path to a greater future for the Church but not one to be looked upon as a standard.

Perhaps Newman is guilty of confusing what Jarsoslav Pelikan called the difference between tradition and traditionalism, but does it not seem Schaff was very much caught in the spirit of his age? Perhaps not as much as many of the period, but given time, I wonder if where in the debate over modernism he would fall.

Thanks for the thoughts. Schaff was certainly influenced by Hegel in many ways, as were the vast majority of historians, philosophers, and theologians educated in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was also thoroughly influenced by Ranke and Neander, and his thought and interpretation of history is permeated with the Hegellian triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, with the final synthesis of all things being summed up in Christ.

So yes, Schaff was very much caught up in the spirit of his age. But his was nonetheless a very, very unique voice in nineteenth century America, along with Nevin. There weren’t many orthodox Protestants laboring on American soil in the mid-nineteenth century who were so influenced by German thought forms and who had such an emphasis on Catholic unity. In fact, to my mind there were only two, at least of note.

Also, you are correct that Schaff did not look at the patristic period as a standard to be repristinated. Rather, he saw it as the second stage (after the apostolic period) in the church’s historical development. His trajectory is always pointed forward, never backward, and when he looks backward, he is always doing so with an eye to the present, and even moreso to the future. You can see this throughout his profound historical analyses in his “History of the Christian Church.” Although he believed it absolutely necessary to study the past in order to learn from it and to be able to adequately interpret and critique ourselves, he would never have advocated attempts, such as we see with the Oxford movement, to just ignore where the Spirit of God working in history has currently brought us and go back to where we were hundreds, or thousands, of years ago. We can and should take old thoughts and beliefs and practices and put them to new use, as Schaff himself attempted to do with the “New Liturgy” of the German Reformed Church in America, but to try to just go back to the past completely is misguided, according to him.

Interestingly, he actually described this as one of the main differences between himself and Nevin. Whereas Nevin tended to want to go into the past and stay there, Schaff wanted to always be moving forward into the dawning of a new age, and this, as I’ve tried to point out in my paper, was the basis for his undying ecumenical hope. Whether or not we buy into his historiography (I personally do not agree with it completely, though I think there are some things to be said for it), we cannot help but admire the passion and persistence of his vision.

One of the strongest points Nevin makes when critiquing all of us who like to find a “home” in a particular point in history in order to find roots was this… “Where precisely do we see the point you describe after which the ‘apostasy’ set in?” In other words, where in the first century did people go from being the equivalent (in Nevin’s day) of the Baptists, Congregationalists, or Presbyterians of Nevin’s day to suddenly “fall away”.

I think that it’s a good basic argument. I naturally believe a Reformation was in order, but I appreciate that point.

Oddly enough the issues being argued in modern reformed circles are essentially no different than in Nevin’s day… Nevin would have, I suspect, a good number more admirers now in some ways. (Or at least some blogs on his side!)